Jose spent two long years trying to crack the code to
reading these hieroglyphs. Along the way he received
help from Elder Joseph Fielding Smith. He gave Jose
a copy of a manuscript entitled "Grammer and Alphabet
of the Egyptian Language" an unpublished work from
Joseph Smith's school of the prophets. The book was on interpreting
Nephite reformed Egyption. With this information he
says, along with Budges dictionary on Egyption
symbols, he finally cracked the code to interpreting
the symbols written on the gold plates.
Del worked at the local gas station to help subsidize his income. He loved talking to the customers about the symbols and the Spanish mines in the mountains. One day a man from Salt Lake City stopped by for a fill up. As usual Del started talking about the symbols and how they almost looked like Egyptian hieroglyphs. The man knew Jose Davila and his studies in reading Egytian. He told Del that he knew a man, who could probably interpret them for him. He told Del all about Jose and the gold plates. He told him Jose was from Mexico but happened to be in Salt Lake.
Del wasted no time in getting a hold of Jose. He described the symbols to Jose over the phone. He agreed to pay for a round trip bus ticket and money for meals, if Jose would just come out to Fillmore, and take a look at the symbols. Jose agreed. Arrangements were made and bus tickets were purchased.
During the rest of the summer (1965), they proceeded to dig a 20 foot tunnel and drilled over 600 feet of exploratory holes just to eliminate possible site locations. Jose said it was an expensive summer. They spent over $1000 for drilling and over $1000 for road work, tunneling, dynamite, food and fuel. Jose spent that summer living near the site in his camper. When snow came, it forced them to stop. They had to wait until the following summer to start up again.
A pre trial broke out between Huntsman and Jose to determine if a court trial was warrented. With Jose losing and a court order was issued for Jose to stop all work until after the trial.
During the pre trial they reached the 80 foot mark and mushroomed the hole out at the bottom of the shaft. Their plan was to drill some exploratory holes 360 degrees around the bottom of the shaft hoping to locate the chamber, which they felt they were near.
Duane and Kent decided they better get in and get the gold plates out before Monday. They drilled three 20 foot holes at the bottom of the shaft. The next day November 6, they loaded the holes with 91 sticks of dynamite. The large boom from the blast echoed across the valley. It was a Sunday, Jose had always preached against working on the sabbath, but they felt the situation warranted it. The blast went off at 4pm. Three air hoses were dropped down the shaft and the compressor was turned on full blast. Kent and Duane headed for town to eat while the fumes from the blast were clearing out.
While eating, Kent's parents showed up. Two hours after the blast, they all headed back up the mountian to the shaft. Kent went down first to see if they had broken into the chamber. When they didn't hear from him Duane went down. He started yelling to pull him up and as they did he fell out of the 55 gallon drum he was being lowered down in. Both of them had been over come by the gases and lack of oxygen from the explosion. Kents mother went to town for help. But the Sherriff's posse had no way to retrieve the bodies. It was finally Del Algood who retrieved them. That night Del called Jose at the hospital and gave him the bad news.
The next morning when I took the cap off of the shaft I could still smell the gasses. I headed back into town and the posse came back with me. At noon I was lowered into the shaft, wearing an oxygen mask. I found the wall at the bottom still wearing the three drilled holes, all intact, undemolished! What had happened? How could this have been? I finally figured the explosion had to have gone backwards. Perhaps the boys did connect with the chamber and the blast went into the chamber along with all the pressure and monoxide gases. So that 15 hours later the gases were still jettisoning out from the chamber threw the three drilled holes.
The bureau of mines stepped in and closed the shaft. Shoring, platforming, mining cage elevators, ventilating systems, etc., were to be put in before I could proceed with the shaft. I never had money enough for food and fuel, let alone for these demands. I returned to Salt Lake City bringing the bodies of my friends. Two of the finest men zion had ever reared.
The funeral was held under the devistating news that Huntsman was sueing me and that I was barred from the premises by court order."
It was Aug. 11th 1967 while working on another shaft not to far from where Joses shaft was. Devon Stanfield was over come by monoxide fumes and fell to his death. It was now three deaths three widows and a whole bunch of fatherless children and still no gold plates. The towns people started whispering that maybe this site and the symbols were haunted. And so it was rumored that people who go looking for church treasure connected with these symbols end up dead.
There are more of these symbol sites around the Western United States. There has also been some mysterious deaths related to some of the other sites. So maybe there just may be something to the curse of these symbols.
Jose paid Huntsman fifteen hundred dollars as a down payment. Work began again in June of 1968. Jose had given the last of his money to Huntsman and never even had enough money left over for food. He lived off fruits that he got from Del Algoods farm, and from water crest he picked along the ditch banks. The bureau of mines would not let Jose do any more work on the shaft until he met their demands.
He went down the hill and dug a 135 foot tunnel, hoping to intersect the shaft. Some how they missed the shaft. But Jose calulated that if they sunk another shaft at the end of their tunnel they should be able to intersect the ancient tunnel.
A 20 foot shaft was sunk inside their tunnel, the shaft was mushroomed out at the bottom so they could drill 30 foot exploratory holes to try and connect to the ancient tunnel.
Finally on Christmas day of 1968 Jose made a last ditch effort to find the tunnel. He probed and blasted but never connected with the ancient tunnel.
Finally, while studying an astronomical chart, he discovered that the north star was in a different location 1550 years ago than it is today. Armed with this new evidence he calculated that he was 5.30 degrees off from where he should have been. He figured he should have been digging where they found the carved stone hand back in 1965. He went back and figured a translation for the stone hand and decided that the egyption meaning for the carved rock was "to remove".
During the summer of 1969 Jose scraped up enough money to repair the road up to the symbols and on up to the stone hand. Taking out some of the turns in the road and making it wide enough to get a drilling rig up there. Summer came and went and he was still no closer to retrieving the gold plates than when he first started back in 1964.
Spending all his time and money on this project caused major problems in his family life. He was suffering from a lot of persecution, and was an embarrasement to the Mormon church.
With no funds to pay Huntsman the ten thousand dollars he owed him for the 1970 season. Jose headed back to Mexico with a broken spirit. He had tried diligently for six years to get to the gold plates only to have all his hopes and dreams shattered.
Letters I have in my possession between Jose and several noted Egyptologist state to Jose that they are not Egyptian, except for just a couple of the symbols. Egyptian is the closes thing that I know of that compares to these symbols. But if they are not Egyptian, what are they?
After researching and studing Jose and these particular symbols. I have come to the conclusion and believe that Jose 100% believed in his interpretation of the symbols. And he 100% believed that he would find an ancient tunnel with records written on gold plates inside. Not only did Jose believe this but many years after their divorce, Jose's ex-wife and kids still believe that Jose was right in his deciphering of the symbols.
Whether he was right or not we may never know. You decide and let me know what you think. While in Mexico, Jose was sent to prison for four years, because he never registered two broken down cars with the Mexican government. He was suppose to drive them to the border every six months to register them. But because they were broke he couldn't get them there, as the border was a long way away.
There were other charges of antiquity and illegal contra band (bank security camera's) but they were all dropped when Jose produced the proper paper work. This all came about because of the Padilla gold plates, and is a long story that I will tell sometime in the future. I think if Jose wouldn't have been in jail, he would have come back to Fillmore. And there would have been more to this saga.